I saw this unusual part on ebay, item # 280667970525, and wondered if Mike (Cuda48) or anybody else had further information about it.Here's the description...

For auction is a brand new, never used plate with the part numbers of Edelbrock STR-15TQ and also CHRY-369-0652. According to a tech at Edelbrock whom I e-mailed for information, this is a cross ram intake for 383 low deck Chryslers, originally designed for trans-am racing. Please do your homework before bidding if you are not familiar with this item, because I don't know much about this type of thing....and can only give the above information I've listed. Please see the pictures for reference-- the entire part is approximately sized 18 x 13 x 1 -- and weighs 6 lbs 6.8 oz.

Those are great pics of the Pontiac cross ram intake. The top plate looks to be very similar to the Chevrolet item, I don't have one hand to compare them closely, does it look that way to anyone else ?

The other thing I notice is that the Pontiac cross ram intake ports are for the non Tunnel Port heads. No doubt they tried all the heads and manifold combinations , and it may well be that the smaller intake runners on the regular heads worked better than with the Tunnel Ports items.Al Bartz has a fabricated intake on the engine he is looking over.

I have spoken to Dave Billes at Performance Engineering but he can't recall many specifics of the twin Dominator engines. Just another race engine.

Indeed the Camaro/Chevrolet production crossram top-plate is very similar to the "production" Pontiac unit (not the one-off Al Bartz item also pictured above). One of the most notable differences would appear to be the radiusing along the edge of the top plate. A pic of both top plate edge radiuses included to illustrate the difference between the two.

After seeing the Traco manifold on the AMC engine in the Roy Woods Racing Team thread, Robert Byng sent me somecool information on the Traco manifold that he owns and the old B/Production AMX that he returned to its road racer roots.

In AMC circles, the owner of the car pictured above is "Hillbilly Bob", if I recall. That's a great story on the intake, but I have never seen one on a Trans Am car, except for the single four in that RWR picture. There are several pictures of the 68 TA Javelins with the Edelbrock crossram, and a few instances where the tunnel ram is peaking out from under the 'domed' hood of 1969. That intake was an I.R. intake with dual Holley dominators, same as the Fords were using. Its easily seen with the pause button on youtube.com Trans AM 1968 at 2:05 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr6U4_2PgPE&feature=related. John Martin (in helmet) can be seen tuning on it.

Click on the link below to examine a fascinating and detail-laden thread concerning what JRT/RKE ran during the '69 season. Some freeze frames of the video mentioned above by Kelvinator, hence unexpected utility too.

Very cool pictures John, you mention "Bill Collins" who was he? did he own the 71 Javelin after Donahue finished racing it? also are all the TA Javelins that race, factory or independent accounted for?

I don't know a whole lot about Bill Collins. It appears he only owned the car (yes, he bought the car that Donohue drove to the '71 T/A championship) for one year and then sold it to Jocko Maggiacomo. I don't think Bill raced in Trans-Am before or after 1972. As far as which Javelins still remain out of the original cars campaigned in Trans-Am, I have not followed those cars as thoroughly as I have the Camaros. Maybe one of the Javelin guys who look in here occasionally can fill us in on the details.